Mental Real Estate

 So The Donald -- craziest president ever! I long ago kicked him out as a squatter taking up free real estate in my head -- but clearly I remain in the minority.

Yesterday was roof tile delivery day -- a pretty big project where a team using a long conveyor belt moved the thousands of heavy clay mix barrel tiles up to the various elevations of the roof of Villa Wifey. Affable Jose of Andrew Palmer called to tell me of the progress, and than said Sara, the cool manager, would be stopping by -- did I still have the paint colors from the last repaint job -- they wanted to touch up some areas where they installed the new copper flashing and damaged the walls. I honestly wouldn't have noticed -- too high to see -- but Palmer, on the top end of prices for roofing companies -- does details like that.

I told Jose I would call Errico, the nice painter we use -- maybe he had the color mix number that Sara could use to buy the paint. I got him on the phone and asked how things were in Miami and Nicaragua (I swear I was going to sing my question to the Broadway tune "How are things in Glocca Morra") and Errico said fine EXCEPT... he HATES Trump so much, and can't think of anything other than that villain, and how could his Latin friends possibly have voted for him, etc... I let Errico vent -- when he did work here he realized he had kindred spirits in Wifey and our designer, a Hialeah Cuban who also loathes The Donald -- and so went on and on. Finally -- we got to business -- no -- he didn't have the colors, but recalled where he left the remaining paint can in my garage, which I gave to Sara and all should be good.

Later, I got a response to my light political satire post on FaceBook (TM) where I noted that I commented rarely on politics but if I had a Dalmation, I would keep it away from Pam Bondi. Old law school friend Cheryl, a classic limo liberal ( commenting continually about social justice from her multi million dollar homes in both West Hollywood and Maine) took me to task -- I SHOULD be more forceful on FaceBook in these horrid times.

I responded that I would wager that the number of peoples' opinions ever changed from FaceBook posts was exactly ZERO. People comment politically to either agree with their side of chastise the other -- often nastily. Nah -- I'll keep to old music videos and Dad jokes -- and, of course, the truly essential: the fate of the Miami Hurricanes! By the way, Cheryl didn't get the Dalmation reference -- I had to school her about Cruella De-Ville...

The pendulum will swing back away from the craziness, as it always does. Or it won't, and things in the USA will become untenable, and my tribe will have to re-locate. As Bill Murray's character said in "Stripes:" All Americans are here because we've been kicked out of every other decent country on the planet!

Where shall we go? I'm a fierce Zionist -- but really have zero desire to live in Israel -- never felt the vibe there on my trips. I guess if forced, it would be Haifa -- the most chill city. Jerusalem? Sacred and holy, of course, but FAR too much tensosity for me.

Jonathan fantasizes a return to Venezuela, and the halcyon days of his childhood in Caracas, where things were pretty good before Chavez and later Maduro took the richest Latin nation and turned it to crap. We'll see if regime change really happens.

I DID like the vibe in Puerto Rico, but turns out it's part of the USA -- so probably makes no sense to go there, though comically we all noticed fewer Spanish speakers in the airport there than at MIA.

Maybe I can claim birthright from my grandparents origins -- Bialystok and Czernovitz. Nah -- they're Poland and Ukraine now -- not garden spots.

I guess this is a benefit to getting older -- less time left to have to worry -- except for my kids and grandkids. Ultimately, they'll have to find their ways.

But for now, I predict November will show The Donald that his act has worn thin. As Tom Petty sang: he went just a little too far.

But for now, I have some serious business today -- fetching D2 and probably Betsy and then Little Man at school -- lunch together, and then back to Villa Wifey for the night. Hopefully he gets to play with Amelie, our next door neighbor who is his age, lovely, and a super genius. Really -- kid is in kindergarten and already winning international coding contests against Middle Schoolers. She adores our boy -- I plan to tell him to hang with her -- she'll tutor him in Math someday.

And if not, just a break for him from his hectic schedule -- downtime from his many after school activities -- probably a trip to Greer Park, and maybe a hunt for downed iguanas.

But ZERO talk about politics...